Tom Jones

First published in 1749 as The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, this comic novel follows a generous, impulsive young man raised on Squire Allworthy's Somerset estate and wrongly turned out after a local scandal. Tom loves Sophia Western, whose father intends her for the hypocrite Blifil, and the pair flee toward London on separate roads. Inns, highway encounters, and a swarm of soldiers, landladies, and pretended friends fill the journey. An omniscient narrator pauses to discuss the art of fiction. The book is a picaresque comic epic of a foundling's fortunes, not a tragic history.

Bound in off-white cloth, covers and spine blocked in brown, black and green with images. Brown endpapers. Green slipcase.